Dapo’ Khaleeda, Taman Abad, Johor Bahru

Big breakfast at Dapo’ Khaleeda (102, Jalan Dato Sulaiman, Taman Abad, 80250 Johor Bahru, tel : +60 18-776 6853).

This place serves breakfast/lunch and sells frozen cooked products.

A few items are on self service. Like their nasi lemak which one can help themselves with before heading to the counter for payment. Got one with paru belado, fried egg, fried chicken and some serunding daging. The last item's beef floss. Rice looked like basmati. Pretty tasty in an old school-ish way.

Lontong's also self service. Pretty lemak gravy there. This was topped with serunding daging as well. Not bad.

Satay can be ordered from their menu. That's chicken and maybe mutton. They're chunky and the meat on the skewer is alternated with chunks of fat. Gravy was deliciously thick and nutty with crushed peanuts.

One of they items they're known for is roti sarang burung. It's a variant of roti canai shaped like a bird's nest with a couple of eggs in the middle. One can get the regular version or with topping. This one's has sardines. Not bad tasting. Can't really make out what's that curry on the side.

Underwhelming teh tarik.

Murtabak Majid Special Cheese No.1, Kampung Kurnia, Johor Bahru

We came to Murtabak Majid Special Cheese No.1 (38 Lot, 5581, Jalan Kurniawan, Kampung Kurnia, 80250 Johor Bahru) for their murtabak. They are known for ones with cheese.

There's a choice of chicken, mutton or beef. Sadly, they were out of mutton when we visited 🥲. So we ended up with the beef. One can choose between biasa (regular/small), special (medium/double layered) or jumbo (presumably large). This was the special daging cheese.

Not as cheesy as what we saw online but still pretty cheesy. Appearances reminded me just a little of the murtabak that one can get from Zam Zam minus the mutton crusted exterior. Pretty good tasting, hefty portioned and not overly oily.

What I particularly liked were the finely diced onions in them which resulted in a mouthfeel and taste which I enjoyed - similar to the ones at Zam Zam.

There's some vegetable dal and sliced cucumbers that you could help yourself to.

Bandung. 

Nishas Indian Food, Mei Ling Food Centre

Mutton murtabak from Nishas Indian Food (#02-34 Mei Lin Food Centre, 159 Mei Chin Road). Old school-ish and not bad tasting. Noticed that there's egg smudged onto the exterior which isn't how they're like usually. Murtabak came with 3 different curries ladled into the plate. I guess my only gripe was I would have preferred the onions to be more cooked down or finely diced. Maybe I'll get them with no onions the next time.

J & J Foodhub, Toa Payoh Central

J & J Foodhub is located in Epic Haus (#01-170, 177 Toa Payoh Central) - the same coffeeshop that Tai Wah Pork Noodle is in.

Was intrigued by their ilocos empanada. - a pastry stuffed with minced pork, grated papaya and egg. Hmm...this didn't look like the fried orange pastry images I saw online. This was red and didn't look fried.

The fillings were okay. The part that bugged me was the bland pastry which was really hard around the edges. What I really liked from this stall was their laing - smokey, fishy (plenty of dried anchovies inside) and packed with heat in coconut milk. The flavour reminded me of otah. Note to self: laing only available on weekends.

Abbas Indian Muslim Food, Bendemeer Market & Food Centre

Nice prata from Abbas Indian Muslim Food (#01-54 Bendemeer Market & Food Centre, 29 Bendemeer Road) - this was a plate of egg cheese and a kosong. The former used plastic wrapped sliced cheese which meant that it was salty and milky. The latter has a bunch of crisp on the surface and also some chew beneath the crisp. A little old school-ish.

Revisiting Springleaf Prata Place @ Thong Soon Avenue

Been like a decade since we last ate at this Springleaf Prata Place. In recent times, there's the Springleaf MRT Station which makes the location much less inconvenient for people who don't live in the vicinity. Was a packed Saturday morning and we turned up not expecting the crowd.

Teh pandan's not bad - better than I imagined. Teh was adequate and the flavour from the pandan came through. Masala tea's also okay-ish. Note to self: Gotta siu dai.

Finally got to try their Impossible Murtaburger. Instead of lamb like the regular Murtaburger, there's an Impossible patty. The flavour also reminded me more than a little of a Ramly Burger. You know that there's too much sauce when you cut off a corner from a little piece and so much squirts out.

Otah prata which I felt was also a little too sauced up inside. There's mayo and mustard which kinda buried the otah.

Roti bomb. Crispy and sugary.

Lamb shank briyani's pretty good. Meat easily fell off the bone. Rice was savoury and pleasantly spiced. Nice nutty masala with a bit of heat as well.

Zam Zam has gotten a makeover!

Haven't been to Zam Zam for a while. The interior has been refurbished.

Hot limau less sweet's nice. There's enough citrus sour in the fruit to make believe that we're cleansing the grease from the food we're about to ingest. 😂 

The thing to eat here which we don't come back often enough for is their crusty mutton murtabak. Spiced ground mutton, egg and diced onions layered in folded prata which is crusted with more ground mutton.

This was the $12 portion.

Ordered their dal for the first time and wishing that we had thought to do so earlier. Love the cumin infused savouriness.

Not bad mutton kurma. The onion loaded gravy was more nuanced with the spices than I had imagined. Mutton's relatively tender but still had a bite to them.

Sikkander's, Marine Parade Central

Came across the mention of Sikkander's (#01-590, 83 Marine Parade Central, tel : +8711 8925) for their mee siam dum biryani.

That's right.

Sikkander's has created a first of its kind; at least for me. Those vermicelli were infused with briyani-ish savoury warm spices that came with a bit of heat. One could choose between chicken or mutton. We had the mutton which was arguably fork tender and chunky. There's also some tangy achar on the side for that cut through.

In retrospect, a bee hoon briyani would probably be more accurate than a mee siam briyani since there weren't any mee siam characteristics/ingredients in it beyond the bee hoon. #justsayin What's pertinent here was that it was delicious. We'll come back again.

One week later......

This was the chicken mee siam dum briyani. Not a slouch compared to the mutton rendition we had last week. Meat from the bird was relatively moist and tender, even for the breast meat. We had some toasted cashews in the noodles today. Very satisfying plate.

Prata's pretty good stuff. That's a double egg underneath a kosong. Both were competently done. I liked how light that kosong was.

Some stuff from Hoshino Pancake

Stopped by Hoshino Coffee at ION (#B3-22 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, tel : +65 6509 8638). Mango pancake's nice. Odd thing was, it was the smell that caught my attention. It smelled like bananas.

There's a "Paris Brest" on menu. Did not taste anything like one. There's barely any hazelnut flavour. Instead of praline, there's just real nuts stuck on top of the pastry. This was merely a cream puff that may or may not have looked like a Paris Brest.

Breakfast during 初一 and 初二

初一 Nasi lemak with extra chicken wings from Queenstown Lontong. I got a piece of tau kwa with it today which was unusual because it's not something they, or other nasi lemak stalls for that matter, include in nasi lemak. Not complaining though. I do feel that the rice tasted better when I had it in their old location at Tanglin Halt. I don't see many of the add ons that used to be available anymore too.

初二 Egg, onion & cheese prata from Prata Saga Sambal Berlada (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七). Red onions lightly cooked down in the prata with milky saltiness from the cheese which is subsequently layered with a mutton-y dalcha and their signature sambal. Nice! 👍🏼

Galette des Rois and Dulcet Rose at TWG

Came across galette des rois at TWG. It's pretty good. Pastry was flaky and buttery with a light frangipane filling inside. Sweet but not excessively so. So I did a bit of Googling after that about them came across how these were traditionally eaten from the 12th days after Christmas on Ephipany. Guess we caught the season for the pastry.

I fell back into the Dulcet Rose trap again!

Revisiting Alice Boulangerie & Restaurant @ Raffles City

More food from Alice Boulangerie & Restaurant.

Their grilled beef tongue skewers were tender. The flavour of whatever it had been braised/stewed in had throughly infused the meat and it tasted kinda like Chinese dark soy sauce. Or lor bak. What I didn't like was the sauce on top which had ginger. Don't recall seeing ginger mentioned in the menu.

Lobster bisque orzo was not bad. I was expected more intensity to the bisque but maybe I was expecting a bit too much from them. There's minced crab meat in it.

Mac & cheese was bad. Menu mentioned mozzarella, parmesan and blue cheese. I'm not sure I tasted any blue cheese. I tried. It's mostly mozzarella and cream with little salt to fight the surfeit that came after a couple of mouthful.

I did what I had to in a bad situation and fell back to a reliable remedy.

Corn tart's not bad. The sweetness with the whole pastry was largely moderated except for something inside the tart which was noticeably more intense. Couldn't tell what it was.

Carrot cake's nice. Love the spices in the cake and that cream cheese frosting wasn't overly sweet.